I’m going to take my opportunity today to update you on
a couple of items that we’ve been working on here at the State Board that have a
great deal of importance to numerous audiences.

First, a guidance letter from the agency regarding
criminal background checks and fingerprinting under P.A. 93-909 will be issued
very soon. In advance of that, however, want to alert you to a crucial
element in that guidance letter: The FBI will NOT conduct a fingerprint check
for any personnel who are not required to be fingerprinted under the Act.
This includes—among other groups—volunteers, student teachers and university
supervisors. It is the State Board’s guidance that school districts should
not require student teachers to submit to an FBI fingerprint background
check. This has been a major concern for the teacher preparation program
folks in working with their local school districts, so I hope this information
will be helpful in that regard.

An additional note: As ISBE issues a variety of guidance
letters to assist you in statutory and regulatory interpretation on this and a
host of other issues, we will attempt to create a standard format for these
letters and post them on the ISBE website. In this way, there will be an
archive of these letters that you can easily refer to for assistance in
administering various programs. If you have any suggestions for us as you
review this information, please do not hesitate to let me know. All of us
at the State Board want to do everything possible to provide you with useful and
timely information, and these guidance letters are part of that
process.

Second, the Division of Data Analysis and Progress
Reporting is presently working non-stop (giving up yesterday’s state holiday,
plus working through this weekend) to run the School Report Cards. More
will be announced soon in terms of the exact time frames, embargo period, and
other details, so a final bit of patience is appreciated as we bring this
process to fruition. Nonetheless, I want to take the opportunity to once
again thank all of you for your patience and assistance through the data
correction period. I know it was a trying time for many of you, but I’m
also heartened that we made the right call on this—the stakes are too high to
have done it differently.

As you will note below, there will be an opportunity to
meet and greet our State Board members in the Comiskey Room during the Triple-I
Conference in Chicago next weekend. I look forward to the
chance to see many of you there as we renew old acquaintances and make new
ones. Many thanks, too, to Dr. Michael Johnson and his staff at IASB in
helping us put this event together.

The Teachers Retirement Service (TRS) has announced that
effective July 1,
2005 the employer
contribution required to be paid to TRS on salaries paid from federal funds will
increase from 10.5 percent to 14.0 percent for earnings in the 2005-2006 school
year. This change is in accordance with Section 16-158(b-3) of the Illinois
Pension Code.

The new employer contribution rate on salaries paid from
federal funds of 14.0 percent for the 2005-2006 school year is equal to the
State funding rate for 2005-2006. This rate will be calculated on an
annual basis and will increase annually over the next several years.

Superintendents should alert the business offices of
this change for the next school year. It will very likely have a significant
impact on budgeting and financial planning for 2005-2006, especially in
districts paying large numbers of employee salaries from Title I, Title II and
other federal grants. For further information, contact the Division of Federal
Grants and Programs at 217-524-4832 or cwalczak@isbe.net.

Charter schools RFP
released

The FY 2005 Federal Public Charter School Start Up
Program request for proposals (RFP) has been released. Grants are
available to support charter schools through different phases of planning and
implementation, including:

§Pre-Proposal
Grants for
not-for-profit entities and public schools to develop proposals for submission
to a local school board to establish a new charter school;

§Planning
Grants for newly
approved chartered schools to develop curriculum and pay limited salary and
benefits for the charter school director prior to opening;

§Implementation
Grants to support
charter schools upon opening to purchase equipment, books, computers and other
long term school necessities; and

§Dissemination
Grants for
established charter schools displaying educational achievements in line with
their goals to help other schools implement their successful curriculum.

Please go to www.isbe.net/charter/index.htm
for a copy of the RFP. If you have questions or need a hard copy of the
RFP, contact Richard Loman at rloman@isbe.net or call the State Board’s
Accountability Division at 217-782-2948.

Reminder: 2003-04
performance report for districts receiving Title funds due November
19

The 2003-2004 NCLB Performance Report is now available
for completion in IWAS. This report must be completed by all public school
districts or entities in Illinois that received any Title funds in school year
2003-2004 (Title I, Title II, Title III, Title IV and/or Title V) not later than
5 p.m. on Friday, November 19, 2004. ISBE must assemble the data and complete a
federal report on December 1. If there are any questions, please call the
Division of Federal Grants and Programs at 217-524-4832 or e-mail to mmason@isbe.net.

Reminder: Invitation
to meet board members and superintendent

The Illinois State Board of Education and Interim State
Superintendent Randy Dunn invite participants of the IASA/IASB/IASBO Annual
Conference to stop by the Comiskey Room of the Hyatt Regency so they can
hear about the great things happening in your areas! Please share this
information with your school board members.

Hyatt Regency,
Comiskey Room (Bronze level)

Friday, November
19, 2004·1:30
to 3:30 p.m.

Saturday,
November 20, 2004·1:30
to 3:30 p.m.

New online teacher
resource available through U.S. Geological
Survey

The U.S. Geological Survey has completed a website about
the water cycle. Found at http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html,
it features a diagram of the natural water cycle and an in-depth discussion of
each of the 15 topics on the diagram. The diagram is available in 45 languages.
The website is part of the existing Water Science for Schools Web
site